Six months after I graduated from high school, I moved to the Midwest state of Kansas. I moved alone without a friend or relative within three states of me. I hoped to not only acculturate myself to a different lifestyle, but to find out more about my independent self. Much to my approval, I found myself to be self-sufficient, modest, and accomplishing. Although it took a different environment to extract these qualities, they seemed to have always been there, destined so-to-speak to show themselves one day. As I now live back in California, within an hour and a half of home I hang on to these characteristics while still enjoying the many benefits of comfort that come along with the close proximity of loved ones.
With that said, would these qualities have surfaced themselves if I hadn't have "exiled" myself to a far away state? When I moved to Kansas, I was not certain of the future me. Similar to my situation, the narrator of the novel "Jasmine" (written by Bharati Mukherjee) experienced the same uncertain transformation. At a young age, Jasmine was told by a psychic of her "Widowhood and exile" (3). Later on that page, she says, "I was nothing" (3) but within a few paragraphs states, "I didn't feel I was nothing" (4). These conflicting statements show that although she was only seven and nothing in the world to anyone else, she felt something inside her tell her that she wasn't a nothing, a no one.
The first part of Jasmines foretold destiny does come true after Jasmine is exiled so-to-speak to the Baden, Elsa County, Iowa in the United States from Hasnapur, India. Later in the novel, Jasmine begins to find her comfort zone as she talks about her home, "...the add-ons cozy me into thinking that all of us Ripplemeyers, even us new ones, belong." (13). Even though her environment has drastically changed to an American lifestyle, she is able to find a sense of belonging. She does marry into an American family, but she says that her husband, "he never asked me about India; it scared him." (12). There seems to be conflict here with Jasmine changing herself but her own family showing fear of something different.
Although Jasmine has been told of her own destiny and her American family seems to encourage her to "murder who we were so we can rebirth ourselves in the images of dreams" (29), Jasmine seems to hold control of her life. She is able to control what is set in her mind by saying, "For me, experience must be forgotten, or else it will kill." (33). This is her way of fighting what is thrown at her in her environment for which she doesn't agree. This shows an active role in where her life will take her.
It has been a constant issue of debate regarding the more influential part of life: nature or nurture. Are we born with certain character traits, or are these traits developed through our environments? I like to believe that I am the person I am today because of the personal development of my character traits. It has been said that everyone in this world experiences heart ache and pain, but it is how we cope with that pain that determines where we proceed from there. It seems that Jasmine is destined to meet with many challenges in life, but it is how she actively reacts to these issues that will determine her future.
4 comments on There Was a Shedding of Skin ...
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I feel that you are correct about a person able to find out about themselves when they are alone and on their own. As I live alone I myself found out just how important my friends and family are in my life. Once everyone had left and I was all alone in my apartment it sort of hit me like a ton or bricks, that of course being the importance of family and friends in one's life. It was scary and I felt afraid but after a the first week or two I learned to live with it and I'm doing alright.